 Please welcome to the stage your DT and L conference director, Wendy Fritz. Welcome to the 35th annual DT and L conference from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am Wendy Fritz, I'm your conference director. We're here to celebrate 35 years of bringing The best practices in distance education to the entire world. We're filling this amazing venue, welcoming in virtual participants, Tolling more than 800 people from 44 states, two canadian provinces, And 10 other countries. That is a testament to the reach of distance education today. With the explosion of mobile devices and digital access, We find ourselves in an era when distance is no longer the barrier it once was. Instead, our biggest challenge is time. Reaching learners around the corner Who just can't come to campus because of their work, family, military, Or professional commitments, as well as residential learners In our campus environment who also need a time management boost. That's why our theme here today is start here and reach everywhere. The field of distance education used to be all about starting in your own physical space. Many of us remember the days of mailing out video cassettes And out to our rural remote learners, right? Today, start here means a lot more. Our entire field is about providing access to learning No matter where, no matter how. Start here also applies to all of us here in our room And to our virtual participants, too. Our conference is a great place to start conversations, collaborations, And professional learning that becomes, later, trusted networks through the years. Back in the 1980s, reach everywhere meant conquering physical distance. Many of you in this room might be old enough to remember Bell Telephone ran ads encouraging people to reach out and touch people Through the miracle of low-cost, long-distance phone service. Today, we're connected like never before via the devices that we carry around In our purses and our pockets. When we want to reach everywhere, we're talking about cutting through the clutter And the noise of the infosphere with strong, valuable insights, ideas, and messages. It was personally required to learn how to polka to graduate high school. Reach everywhere and send a strong message. Ladies and gentlemen, the university of Wisconsin marching band. Thanks, everyone. This is educational consultants for sponsoring the uw marching band for us this morning. We're also grateful to our other sponsors, credly, media site. They're doing all the video streaming for us this morning. Portfolium, magna publications, squiggle. They're going to be doing some big board illustration for us for our keynote this morning. And the duarte group for sponsoring the conference and special events for you during this conference. So for the first time in history, we really can reach everywhere. And it's up to us to design experiences that meet learners where they are. And when they can focus on their learning. Because this is a very special 35th anniversary conference, we have Even more special events and surprises in store for you. So stay tuned. Are we all excited to collaborate And learn with each other and our experts in the field? Everybody excited? Great. Let's add a little more excitement, too. So with our keynotes this year and our other featured speakers, We have follow-up discussions set up for you. So you can actually go meet them and take a hand and make a friend and get your questions answered. And bucky badger, did anyone take a picture with bucky badger yesterday? He's coming back tonight for a rooftop party starting at 4.45 up on the roof. So here's another special treat. I'd like to introduce a colleague of many of you know. Our conference team is fortunate to have the support of our campus leadership. Our vice provost of lifelong learning and dean of the division of Continuing studies has enthusiastically supported the dtnl Conference for you over the years and he's here to welcome you formally. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jeff Russell. Thank you, Wendy. It's not always that we get a chance to wake up to the badger band. So we want to welcome everybody here. I actually this morning I just felt really compelled. I'd like us to just take a minute and recognize those people in Dayton. Oh, pass. So let's take a minute and reflect on those people in those communities Just for a moment of silence, please. Thank you. So we're really excited about the 35th conference. I've been fortunate to be part of it for nine years. And as we think about the things that are important to us. As Wendy was mentioning cassette tapes and different things. It wasn't that long ago that we were sending around postcards, Videotapes and other technologies and we're thinking about the role of technology As we think about design education in our team has really worked hard to create A very positive experience for you here. And we look forward to you engaging with your colleagues with the speakers With folks virtually so that we can take advantage of all the expertise And all the ideas that we have here. One of the key things that we believe in Wisconsin is what's called the Wisconsin idea And it's this notion that you meet people where they are You work to advance the practices of the things that we're working on In teaching and learning is about using technology using design But it's about meeting learners where they are designing learning opportunities In spaces where they are to enhance their learning Give them opportunities to grow and to change. So this is a really exciting conference. We've worked really hard. The team I want to thank Wendy and everybody and all the sponsors For all their support. And I know that you're going to take advantage of a lot of the opportunities That you have to network. I'll be part of the panel. It's a role that have been really thinking hard about online education. It's one thing to look backwards. It's another thing to look forward in tomorrow morning. And we like eight o'clock. We'll be here at eight o'clock for a panel discussion. And we'll be with a lot of the thought leaders that are in the online space. They're looking at scale. They're looking at personalization. They're looking at a lot of opportunities. And I'm looking forward to participating with that with you on that particular panel. So enjoy the conference. Enjoy your peers. Enjoy your colleagues. Enjoy Madison. And welcome to the university. Thank you Jeff. Hi everybody. I'm Tom Tobin. I am your program director for distance teaching and learning. And I'd love to welcome everybody and say to continue the excitement. We'd love it if you would stop in at our exhibit hall. You can visit our sponsors and our vendors. You can check out the engaging programs that are taking place on the learning stage. You can go to the e-tools demos. By the way, we just had another one put in. So check your guidebook for that announcement. And you can go to the author nook. We have a bunch of people who are signing books or talking about their work. And maybe relax and book a chair massage. So be sure also to check out your colleagues ideas on social media. They are a very social media friendly conference being distance education. Especially using the Twitter hashtag UWDTL. Do you have an idea, a question, a comment? Post it and take part in the conference beyond the conference. Also, are you still deciding what to attend? Let's just take a quick closer look at the program. The conference offers eight different session formats. You can check those out in guidebook or in the printed program on page four. And you can check out our featured sessions where we invite researchers, authors, and theorists to give you a deeper understanding of the hot topics in the field. Concurrent sessions. This is where your colleagues share their research, their activities, tools, group learning exercises, all to engage and involve you. And DTNL talks. You know what TED talks are. These are like TED talks squared. Stop by these practical, focused, bite-sized sessions and we have much, much more. In addition to the various formats, you can also follow thematic tracks across all of our session types to make it easier to focus on key issues throughout your time at the conference. We also have special interest groups or CIGs, conference certificates. There are 10 CIGs this year on topics like design, healthcare, librarianship, military learning, virtual reality, professional development, administration, research, and workforce development all in distance education. So when you see people wearing their CIG ribbons, ask them about their experiences. They are building communities that go beyond the conference, and they love to have your voices in them. Now, our conference certificates and badges this year include fundamentals of online teaching, online education administration, design thinking for learning design, and from our sponsor, the Duarte Group, visual storytelling. Now, DTNL's certificates and badges blend pre-conference study, conference workshops, post-work, and a final project. Pro tip, we offer these programs and more as online-only credentials throughout the year for all of you. Check out the URL on your screen, bit.ly.uwdtl for more details. So as you can see, we have a lot on offer. We have more than 100 speakers and facilitators, and to help you navigate the conference and find what you want, download our guidebook app where you'll find the latest information about the conference. By the way, we'll also be taking questions and comments about the keynotes via guidebook, and you'll also find the session evaluation forms there too. We value your feedback and ideas, and this year, we've gone 100% digital for the conference session ratings, so please download guidebook if you haven't already done it. By the way, if you have questions about the guidebook app, our resident app guru is Miranda Winkelman. Miranda, would you just stand up and give a wave so people know where you are? Awesome. If you see Miranda in the hallways, we'll be all set there. So, let me turn it over to Wendy, and we'll get started with our keynote. Your conference theme is also here to help. You'll see us all running around in red shirts. So, please feel free to stop us in the hallways, stop by the information desk, any red shirted member in the hallways, Or use the q and a feature in the guidebook app. By the way, we have one really important rule, and it's called Get up and leave. If you feel like you want to be In two places at once and you want to catch a little bit of one session And a little bit of another, feel free to do that. Or if you don't like what you're in, it wasn't what you Thought it was going to be, get up and leave and go do something else. So, please do feel free and encouraged to do that. We do want you to get the most of your time while you're here. So, we continue to bring this conference to you each year Thanks to the support of the university of wisconsin Madison and a number of supporting organizations. Just wanted to give another shout out to our platinum Sponsors. Media site is here Recording the virtual conference and credley is also here. Gold sponsors, canvas. We'll talk to you again about Canvas con that's happening friday. We'll hope you join us there as well. Magna publications, portfolio, squiggle. We'll have our big board folks here in just a few minutes. And symbiosis educational consulting. We have silver sponsors, honor lock, duarte and Respondus and tutor me. And we have a whole bunch of Exhibitors who are here also to share good things and Good tools with you. We're also excited to pair, Like i said a few seconds ago with this year's conference with A one day canvas con event on friday. If you're interested in that, you can go to our information Desk upstairs or you can go to the canvas booth in the Exhibition hall and they can tell you more about it. Visit philip pay there. Don't miss the opportunity to Learn all you can in the exhibit hall. It's open today from 9.30 to 4. All right. Is everybody ready for our opening keynote speaker? Yeah? All right. And just as a programming note, we'll be taking questions Via the q and a feature in guidebook at the end of the Keynote. We're grateful to canvas for Sponsoring our opening keynote. Their canvas con is right Here on friday as you just heard and to squiggle for Providing the live big board visual notes. Come on back. This is the tom and wendy portion. I'm sorry. Okay. I'm honored to introduce robin Jarosa as our opening keynote speaker. Robin is the director of open teaching and learning at The open teaching and learning lab at plummet state University in new hampshire. The open lab is a Dynamic hub for praxis around the pedagogical Innovation open education and integrated approaches to Teaching and learning. You have the clicker? Robin is an editor at hybrid pedagogy and open access Journal that combines strands of critical and digital Pedagogy to arrive at the best social and civil uses for Technology and new media and education. An advocate for public higher ed, robin is known for her Work designing learner driven structures and Approaches for courses, programs and institutions that Empower students to participate passionately in their own Learning. She's speaking with us today on personal Space, rethinking distance learning. Let's welcome robin Jarosa. Can everybody hear me? Well, thank you for having me. There's been badgers, cheese, Brought worst. It's been really wonderful. For those of you who may have hearing impairments, you may Want to follow along with the text of this presentation. The google slides are available at bit.ly Slash rethinking distance. If that helps you and you'd like to follow along. This may be better for later on, but if you are using a Screen reader and you'd like image descriptions for the Slides, this keynote is also published as a post and has Embedded descriptions there, so that's available at robin Jarosa.net slash higher dash ed slash dtl. These will all be available on the twitter feed as well so you Can find what you need to follow us pretty Accessibly. The university of wisconsin Madison occupies ancestral ho chunk land, a place their Nation has called t-jop since time immemorial. In 1832, treaty the ho chunk was forced to cede this Territory. Decades of ethnic cleansing Followed when both the federal and state government Repeatedly but unsuccessfully sought to forcibly remove the Ho chunk from wisconsin. The history of colonization Informs our shared future of collaboration and innovation. And today, uw madison respects the inherent sovereignty of the Ho chunk nation along with the 11 other first nations of Wisconsin. It's good when we're talking so much about place and Distance to start with an acknowledgement of the land that We are currently meeting on. Recently, i've been spending a Week each summer on monhegan island off the coast of Maine and monhegan is actually an algonquin word. It's a place that native people originally used as a Port for trading with settlers. But today, it's still a very Rustic island. Doesn't have much electricity. There's no cars allowed. Has a tiny population through the Year of about 65 hearty manors. And i go there to try to Stop talking. Which is easier for me than you Might imagine if you know me. But i like not only being Quiet but thinking about being quiet. A few weeks ago i Composed the first draft of this keynote on monhegan as i was Reading sarah maitland's book of silence. Which is one part Memoir of living quietly in some of the world's most silent Spaces and one part of cultural history of silence. I was struck by this quote from maitland. Silence does not seem to be a loss or lack of language. It does not even seem to be the opposite of language. I found it to be a whole world in and of itself. Alongside of Woven within a language and culture. But independent of it. It comes from a different place altogether. There i was chasing solitude and silence on a remote island Working on a project about distance. I was struck because distance and solitude seemed so Intertwined. They all conjure up the sense of Going away from people or noise, communication. But maitland made me pause. Maybe it isn't that these things Are retreats or losses. Maybe it's not about a lack of Something or leaving something or losing something. Maybe there's a qualitative difference between language And silence and between distance and face to face. But maybe that difference is not one of opposites but one of Relationality. I'm going to try a little experiment. Let's see how it goes. Can i ask somebody way over on this Side of the room to volunteer? Just put your hand up. Somebody who doesn't mind. I'm going to wait. There you go. Thank you person there. Can you stand up? Yes, thank you. Can you tell us what your name is? I'm glad that was easy and i heard it. But if you can just say standing for a minute, is there somebody Over on this side of the room who would also volunteer? Thank you. Will you stand up? Tell us your name? Or someone else can shout it for you? Diane. Okay, thank you. Can you guys just make sure you see each other over there? Okay. Now you can both sit but We'll remember where you are. So there's many people in the world farther away from each Other than ann and diane. But these two folks have been Conceived in a relationship now. So even though they're really As far apart as you can get in this room, there's something That bonds ann to diane at this point. If they meet later in the buffet line, they may actually Say hello ann. Hello diane. I'm the person from the other side of the room. People actually in perth australia are as far away. I googled this. They're as far away as any person could be From us in a sort of inhabited city. But even so, the fact that i just named perth australia has Brought the people of perth a little bit into this room. So there's a really interesting thing that people who are Distant are still on our maps as we think of them Once we think of them. When ann and diane meet, that Distance will be the cause of their connection. So now look around this room and ask yourself, who here is at A distance from me? And the answer is everyone. Everyone is separate from you. But everyone in this room and Outside of it could be mapped into your world and become connected. So i started thinking what really is the difference between Learning at a distance and learning face to face. And if distance always holds this seed of connection, what does That mean about how we think about the world-wide web, this Connective technology that we're only beginning to understand in education? I hope you'll indulge me for just a few more minutes in Thinking abstractly about distance before we really try to Parse out what we might think about distance education. As a literature scholar, i automatically moved to metaphors. So many of the ways that distance functions in our everyday Lives is in helping us to make sense of our relationships and Our emotions. Whether something is near or Far has little to do with objective measurement and Everything to do with how we feel and what we choose to Compare those things with. So having friends across the Globe can make you feel every mile as a vast unmapped Chasm as you miss them. But it can also make you feel Every mile as a possible route to connection. Thoreau explained it this way, nothing makes the earth seem So spacious as to have friends at a distance. They make the latitudes and longitudes. In literary theory, derrida's concept of difference suggests That all meaning in language is made mostly by difference And deferral. So we think about the word cats. And there's nothing about the word cat that tells us what A cat is. It's the way we think of That word in relationship to other words. It's not a bat, it's not a mat, it's not a cub. And that's how we start to understand the word cats. In computer science, we have a thing called edit distance. It's the number of steps required to change one segment Of text into another where a step could be adding or Deleting or changing one character. So in both cases, in literary theory and computer Science, we see that distance isn't at all what's remote or Far away. It's that which is right there, adjacent and Related but different. That which is connected. But of course, the maps that we make are not generally in Metaphors or codes. When we think of distance, What we mostly think of is measuring geographic space. We use calibrating tools, compasses to plot our points And calculate. But still, how far away is Ann from dian? We can measure distance traveled as Ann goes around all the tables and chairs to get to dian. But we can also measure the straight line euclidean distance Between ann and dian. Or the geodesic difference. That distance takes the curvature of the earth into Account when we're measuring how far it truly is from one Person to another. The point is that the Objective difference and that distance will change depending on The tool that we select, the context for our scientific Observation and the disciplinary backpack that we carry with Us on our map quest. So when we think about Distance learning and imagine that it means something, I'm not sure that it does mean something. It may likely mean many things, both because distance Itself, even at its most scientific, is still subjectively Understood and experienced and deployed. And because distance, when yoked to education, is a Complicated technology infused mashup of human separation And connection. And of course, the word Distance when used in distance learning is also Inflected by the history of distance education. One of the first ads that ever ran for distance Education course was Mr. Caleb short-hand course. A course offered via mail in the early 1700s, you know, Before the u.s. was the u.s. So for those rural Colonists back then who wanted to learn short-hand Without the expense or radical effort of riding into Boston for face-to-face classes, they could be as Quote perfectly instructed as those from the city by Taking the correspondence class. Two things resonate with me Sitting here almost 300 years later. First, the idea that people outside of cities and without Means or a certain background could still gain access to Learning. And second, this learning Would be a perfect match to the learning that others were Able to do face-to-face. And we still hear both of These arguments about distance learning today. It increases access and it's just as good. In fact, it's exactly the same as traditional education. But the history of distance education contains some other Seeds that might seem familiar to us now as well. 150 years after philip's first ad and the distance Education market has exploded. Whole schools had Cropped up to meet the growing demand for Correspondence-based education. The largest private For-profit school based in pennsylvania, the International correspondent schools was founded in 1888 to provide training for immigrant coal miners Aiming to become state mine inspectors or foremen. It had rolled 2,500 new students in 1894 and Metriculated 72,000 new students in 1895. The growth was due to sending out complete textbooks Instead of single lessons and the use of 1,200 Aggressive in-person salesmen. What we're seeing is the move from skills-based training to Jobs-based training, which is an easy hop. And the correspondence moves from an interactive dialogue Between a teacher and a student to a model where Students can self-progress through larger chunks of Curriculum at their own pace. Anyone who's read Trecy McMillan-Cotton's lower ed, which is a Brilliant book about the for-profit higher ed Industry and the complicated way that it fails to deliver on Promises, especially to poor people and people of color. We'll note the familiarity of the effect of a robust sales Pitch on a demographic of learners who are precariously Dependent on the whims of an exploitive labor market. This ad here shows the growing connection between Labor markets and learners and the shrinking distance Between the value of what you know and the value of who You are. And just a quick image Description, the slide shows a line drawing of three men. Are they all the same man? I can't tell. It's possible. With price tags around their necks showing how much each of Them is worth. Here's one for the Enrollment managers in the crowd. By 1906, total enrollments at the international correspondence School had reached 900,000. You can see from this chart, Even the early years demonstrate its promise as Enrollments begin to double and then explode. Now this depends where you are, but those of us not at elite Institutions and particularly those of us in regions of the Country facing demographic slides and young adults. We can hear the saliva begin to fall from the mouth of Our desperate enrollment managers. If these were only our admission trends. In public institutions, as state support has declined, You don't know anything about this in wisconsin, right? We've grown increasingly dependent on tuition to Operate. My public regional University in new hampshire is currently about 9% funded by The state of new hampshire. And each year there's fewer and Fewer young adults in the northeast to apply to college. Increasingly our enrollment managers are looking to Job training, private partnerships, distance Education, and adult learners to reach new markets. Of course historically we can see these are actually very old Markets. You may recognize on this slide tippy The turtle. He was that draw me turtle That you'd have to send in to gain admission to Correspondent school art classes. They were heavily Avertized in the 1980s in the magazines i used to read. And i'm using tippy to delineate three of the key Characteristics of distance education that have been held Over from the earliest boom in american distance ed through Today's dominant rhetoric around distance learning. First, the promise that distance education is just as good, Valid and high quality as face to face instruction. Indeed that it is really no different. Second, the promise that your earning potential, what we Sometimes now refer to as the college earnings premium, Will increase if you take this course of study. And third, that distance education is scalable to provide Maximum access to learners and maximum enrollments and Revenues to institutions. I'm sure you may have already guessed that i take a critical Approach to thinking about these three qualities. We might call it the sad tippy critique. Ultimately i will argue that we undermine a truly Learner centered vision for distance education if we Describe to the perfect replication model. But i want to start by thinking about the second thing here. The college earnings premium as a way of beginning to gesture More pointedly towards my critique. And therefore towards what i would consider to be a more Humane, just and promising vision for distance ed as we Move forward. If you get a college degree studies show you're likely To make on average 114% more money than you would have Made if you didn't get that degree. College degrees more than pay for themselves this way. Same with associates degrees where the costs and premiums are Lower but still proportionately a great deal for learners. Of course the news gets worse if you take out significant Loans for college and then never get a credential. Therefore forfeiting the lion's share of the cep. But you likely know all of this because admissions Officers like to make it known that if you go to college You will make more money. And in fact, if you were a line drawing of a white guy You would see your attached price tag go up in real time as You graduate. But the cep is a reductive way to measure the benefits of College. Cep measures only what economists call private market Benefits. But there are many more private benefits on cep like the fact That you're more likely to get better fringe benefits at Your job if you have a college education. But more notably there are other benefits that are less Directly tied to markets. Your health will improve. You'll be less likely to become disabled. Less likely to be in prison. More likely to enjoy your life, have a better marriage and Live longer. And get a job. And you'll partly pass these private benefits on to your Children whether or not they go to college. And then we can also take a look at benefits that go Beyond the individual. There are a host of economic and quality of life benefits To regional communities when more residents attend college. And none of these private or external benefits. No non-market benefit negates the college earning premium. But what it shows is that when we think of college as just An individual good tied to earnings, we rewrite the Facts about what is so powerful about higher education. In particular public higher education. So the question I want to ask is how do we need to Rethink the concepts of distance, the history of Distance education and the current state of online Learning in order to expand the paradigm so that it offers More of a vision for higher education that serves both Individual needs and the public good. As a way of looking forward to today's shiny online Learning environment, let's go back a moment to the turn Of the last century ad that promised that specific job Training would help. As distance ed became a way to train for the competitive Human pricing market, we saw a striking thing happen. We are aiming to make our courses fit the particular needs Of the student who takes them. In this case coal miners. They were personalizing their courses. But of course following cotton, i would say that this Personalization is about tailoring humans to fit Markets, not tailoring courses to fit humans. The legacy of selling personalized learning that Turns workers into commodities to feed the specific needs of A labor market is a trajectory that's thriving in today's Online learning environment. Here's part of the definition of personalization from Wikipedia. Personalization, sometimes known as customization, Consists of tailoring a service or product to Accommodate specific individuals, sometimes tied to Groups or segments of individuals. A wide variety of organizations use personalization to Improve customer satisfaction, digital sales conversion, Marketing results, branding, and improved website metrics, As well as for advertising. One obvious thing i will point out here is that the person Is mostly missing from this definition of personalization. For sure the most brilliant scholar writing on the Dehumanization of personalized learning today is Audrey waters. As Audrey points out, quote, wikipedia's Introduction to its entry on personalization is such a Perfect encapsulation of how internet culture sees itself, Sees its history, tells its story, rationalizes its Existence, frames its future. How much of personalized learning as imagined and built And sold by tech companies is precisely this, metrics, Marketing, conversion rates, customer satisfaction. She goes on to reflect on how early teaching machines Designed to scale personalized learning and wrap it in with The push to market technologies for education became a whole Industry based on the atomized individual moving through Atomized content modules, filling out little circles, and Pressing little buttons. This is actually a video so if you watch on the post later Or go to the slides, you can watch this early video about The invention of these wonderful teaching machines. So we have this interaction where computers and job Training and scalability mix into this personalization cocktail And the result is a particular line. Particular, custom, individual, one of a kind, line. The line is the most ubiquitous, unilateral, and Boring and scalable of shapes. I think that juxtaposition between the particular Customized personalized and the flat line is so very Interesting. Let's think about lines. The trajectory and qualities are worth considering. The line generally goes from left to right or bottom to top And the focus is on the summit, getting people up one at a time. At the top of the summit, revenue success. For the student who achieves the cep or the new job or For the institution that sold the course or short up its Reputation to increase its selectivity or enrollments. Instructors in the original push button machine learning world Or in the more original correspondence course work to Support individuals or groups, but individual and groups were Unable to work together. The pony express, the usps, the Old school offline computer did not encourage collaboration, only call and correct. Like this line up everest, the focus was individual Achievement and stopping to help a fellow climber could mean Sacrificing your own ability to survive in a fundamentally hostile world. I'm also ignoring the reality of going up everest because nobody Actually goes up everest by themselves and we can have a Whole long discussion about sherpas right now, but we're Not going to do that. Not only do we not think Creatively enough about what distance is, we also don't do Enough thinking about how the technology that allows us to Go online could or should change the landscape for distance Learning. I don't need to tell anyone here that the Internet is a meaningful invention in the history of distance Education, but that doesn't mean we've meaningfully Integrated its affordances or ameliorated its pitfalls into Our online learning ecosystem. The internet, as i am most Interested in it, is a technology that connects. But connective technologies have existed probably since the Dawn of technology. Choose any day you like. Go to the Stone age, whatever. I'll start here for a moment by talking About charles lindberg who made the first transatlantic flight In may of 1927 flying from new york to paris in the spirit Of st louis or st louis, depending on who you are. While humans had other ways to connect the continents, this Was a new important way to bring a human body from one Part of the world to another. Nearly 200 years later in 2001, The first tele-surgery operation was conducted. A doctor in new york removed the gallbladder of a patient in France using an internet connection and a robotic setup. And i'm sure because it would one day make a meaningful Comparison for this keynote, that tele-surgery operation Was called operation lindberg. The press release for the Tele-surgery posits that some day, and by the way that day is Here, some day the internet could provide a sort of umbilical cord To link a young surgeon with more experienced teacher surgeons. Of all the phrases to use, like tether, link, connection, wire, Bridge, whatever, they chose umbilical cord. If only the gallbladder surgery and operation lindberg Had been the delivery of a baby instead and then this Keynote would really be on fire. Because we want so very badly to Believe that the tethers and links and connections that Technology provides us in communication and in teaching Can be human, can birth not only knowledge but more humanity. But how is our humanity served if we continue to think of That connective tether as a straight line? A line that moves in one direction with no width to Allow any interaction along its axis. The end of operation lindberg's press release, there are other Dreams of how tele-surgery could improve the future. And one is, quote, it would also make it possible for Developing nations to benefit from the expertise of world Renowned surgeons in order to enhance care in their country. So many assumptions here about where medical knowledge resides And who has the capacity to teach and who must be lucky Enough just to learn. Position this against last month's headlines about medical Care inflected by missionary zeal and the fatal effects it had On the communities who were supposedly being served. When the web flows one way, we get a power dynamic that Doesn't increase learning as much as it increases control. That same press release has the culmination of the dream. Fully automated tele-surgery from pre-op all the way to popsicle. I don't know health care in the united states. It's a train wreck on a bunch of levels. And who am i to say how we should improve it? Maybe robot doctors. In 2001, we could barely imagine past these dreams to an Even more glorious time when there would be no human doctor At the end of the umbilical cords. When ai would do the thinking and the internet would Unicate and the robots would do the surgery. These connective technologies started out from histories that Obscured and constrained human connection. And they look ahead to a utopian future that all but erases Human connection altogether. And we call it learning, personalization, even healing. I have seen the science i worshiped and the aircraft i Loved destroying the civilization i expected them to serve. Charles Lindbergh. We recognize the disconnection in connected learning. And there's lots of ways we try to humanize our online classes. Most of which are really helpful and lovely techniques. But i also marvel that education has grown up as something Dehumanized. Something dehumanizing. And only through the straight line constraints of distance And personalized learning trajectories. And also through the industrial age context that supported This trajectory as it fed the factory line model history of Education that we've inherited. Kathy davidson's book, the new education is great on tying all Of this to that industrialized 19th century model of education. So now we're in this very awkward position of being humans Fighting with machines and structures in order to stay Human. Let's take a look at curriculum delivery that deeply Personalized, highly scalable holy grail of online learning. Delivery is a familiar word in the kinds of paradigms we've been Examining so far. But even in our birth metaphors the implication is that Delivery is better when it facilitates a straight line Between two parties. Those of us troubled by the dehumanization of personalized Curriculum delivery work hard to add a personal touch to Our curricular designs. My favorite work on this currently is from Michelle Brock, an art historian and community college professor Who is a role model of mine in faculty development. But i want to see Michelle's ecosystem, some of it is here On the side. I want to see her ecosystems emerge out of the box, off The line. I want to know what happens not when we try not to be a Robot, but when we encourage ourselves to connect like humans. So weirdly long distance relationships work out better Than you might think. I dug into some research and it seems we compare long Distance relationships against normal relationships, whatever You want to call them. And we assume that long distance relationships are shadows Of the original. But in fact studies show that long distance relationships Have several qualities that are really unique and seem Like healthy qualities for a relationship. Long distance relationships reported higher relationship Quality and dedication in a number of areas. They had a lower perception of constraint or being trapped And they displayed more introspective behaviors. Interesting to think of these in online learning. We appreciate the way that online learning frees us from The constraints of time and space and we appreciate the Reflection that can happen when students don't have to Think quickly in real time but can reflect on the material At their own pace and from their own comfort zones. But perhaps we underestimate the ways that this can enhance The quality of learning itself. The next part of the presentation here attempts to map Out a different constellation for thinking about distance And distance learning and a new set of architectures for Learning that develop from this constellation. And i'll just remind you all of this is available in slides And in the post so you don't necessarily have to And if you can't see it as i could never see that from Where i was sitting don't worry. I want to refuse the metaphors that we ourselves have Generated through our industrialized regimented linear Historical education timelines. I don't refute them. I acknowledge and resist them. Because the historical models we have inherited and Sustained can find the metaphors we work with when We imagine what online learning could be. Does distance have to be the opposite of closeness? Is online the opposite of face to face? I contend after sarah maitland from the beginning that Silence is not the opposite of language and that if we Think of distance more creatively we can release it from The dichotomy that pins it to its second chair. Always a sidekick to the real thing or our face to Face experiences. Distance asks us to measure and describe our Relationality and this can be done in many ways. Even quantitative metrics are not singular. Being far away is also a marking of proximity as with Ann and diane who are now connected. When we think of distance as an invitation to explore Our relationality to others we invite ourselves into a Learning community and this is a precious resource and An opportunity. Distance means that difference is implied and we Acknowledge that we are not each other. That there is gaps between us in space and in time and In understanding. We can value this and use it to work for inclusion. Informed by scholars like april halfcock and jonathan Lambert i might call this empathy with critical Distance. Marking what we don't understand as a way of Being empathetic that resists colonizing gestures Like that missionary in uganda inflicting the worst Kind of violence in the name of empathy. This is a data vis of a tweet pattern in a new learning Community coordinated by the open colab where i work. But if you look at it is it one learning community or is It two learning communities or more. The web is called the web and not a line but simply put Our learning architectures are built for the simple line Correspondence class and the push button binary logic of A teaching machine. What does learning look like if the lines become a Tangle or what my friend dave cormier calls a rhizome. What happens to knowledge? To webify the web we need to move past thinking only about The affordances of digital tools and look at what Connection and education really offers us. Four slim years after operation linberg was dreaming About fully automated tele-surgery. George seamans was thinking about how the internet would Change not only how we learn but what we learn. Since when we connect learners and allow them to learn with Each other collaboratively not just from each other but With each other we change the shape of knowledge. A good example of this is wikipedia where the fullness Of an entry can transcend the expertise of any one particular Editor or contributor. George explores how the web can connect people but also how People can create nodes that engender new knowledge that Originates not in any one person but in the connection Itself. But how do we keep connected and connectivist approaches to Learning from dehumanizing us from disempowering and Excluding from automating us into oblivion or into an Even more digitally divided society. So maybe you think i have an answer to that but i don't. But i'll share with you one of the concepts that's been Helping me develop new practices with my students and My faculty colleagues. The commons can be an alternative to the dichotomy between Face-to-face and distance education. It's a way of seeing humanity and its web of connections as A useful foundation for learning. It's a way of leveraging technology to explore ways to Improve life. The commons is a vast concept and i have no interest in pinning It specifically to distance education or solidifying its Definition. But for the purposes of this talk and my most recent work i'm Thinking of it as a values driven integration of technology And human relationships built on respect, sharing, access, And justice. You may have heard of the tragedy of the commons. It was especially popularized in a 1968 article in science by Ecologist gared harden who cites an example from a 19th Century economist william forster loid. It's about over grazing. So here's a nice meadow. It's lush and green. It's open. It's a shared resource. Let your cows in. But of course the greedy guy with the most cows gets in There, he grazes the hell out of the meadow. It totally dies. Everyone's out of luck. The cows are hungry. And this is why we can't have nice things. That's the tragedy of the commons. But the commons there is a resource. But the way i and a growing number of open educators, some of Whom are right here smiling, have begun to think about it. The commons is not a thing. It's not even a set of things. Commons, as my friend Jim Luke is fond of saying, is a Verb. Over grazing happens when sustainability and sharing are Not the fundamental points of the commons. Instead free stuff is the point. How do we make learning less about getting and giving free Stuff and more about the freedom to think as widely as Our minds allow. Here's some practices i've been working on with my students To begin to think about how teaching and learning might Look if we attended to the values of the commons. The freedom to think and work in an ecosystem that Is respect, sharing, access, and justice. First of all, i try to think outside of the lines and the Boxes. The biggest line is that syllabus schedule. And the biggest box is the learning management system. And i am sponsored today by canvas. Thank you and structure. So your lines and boxes may look different. And to a certain degree there's affordances in all of our Lines and boxes that are helpful. But once i started seeing all the lines and boxes that were Delineating the world that i was working in, i stopped Making assumptions. I stopped assuming that learning outcomes could be fully Prepared in advance of meeting any learners in the course. I stopped choosing every single reading in advance and I stopped crafting every assignment before i had input From students. I stopped wrangling in digressions as if they were a Distraction from the content. And this changed the shape of my courses and started to Change the shape of the work that my students were doing. And we quickly outgrew our lms where students had Trouble customizing and sharing the ideas that were Starting to feel more like their own. I could no longer in good faith import my moodle shell Into the next semester which meant deleting out all of my Students amazing and brilliant work that had truly grown the Fields that they were working in. I felt like i was losing valuable insight for the next Cohort of students. We cobbled together ways for students to create new Systems of their own to manage and catalyze their work. Over three years that evolved for us into the Adoption of domain of one's own. I have two examples here that you can click on later in The presentation that show online spaces that the students Designed themselves to build their own architectures for Learning where they could hold their own work and communicate Out with scholars and professionals in their fields to Invite them in to collaborate. I was also inspired early on in this work by a colleague of Mine at the university of new hampshire who used my maps With students in their english as a second language course. They built a course map together and when students went home For spring break they created video tours practicing their English of their hometowns some of which were all spread Across the world and this map not only allowed them to Practice english but it also allowed them to share their Culture with each other and with their american colleagues. The project you see here is a project from webster University on the political dimensions of world religions And students write papers and share video in key sites that Are pinned to a map to explain the political dimensions of Religious dynamics in countries that they know intimately as Home. This work is not hoop jumping it has the potential to be Deeply impactful for both learners in the course and for Various publics outside of it and work like this approaches Distance learning thoughtfully uses distance as an Affordance and leverages distance as an opportunity to Let people tell their own stories and be heard in their Own contexts even as they connect across the world. So going back to networked learning this is a data vis of our Interdisciplinary studies program on twitter it's summer so This only captures the last couple of months when a bunch of Students aren't there but you can see our program at the Center is surrounded first by our professors who are then Surrounded by the peer mentors in our programs who are Then surrounded by the students and who are there then Surrounded by a whole host of public collaborators and all of That is great but it's those nodes where the magic happens Where students are connecting their academic work to Communities outside our institution and the more i Teach to facilitate these bursting ancillary nodes the More i end up working to de center the big hubs in the Middle the programs the teachers and lots of faculty Bristle when we talk about learner directed curriculum or Decentering authority and expertise when content is King we have to bend to its will but when connection and Community are the coin of the realm we can learn through The work and through the dialogue the internet helped Me imagine an unboxed learning world it helped me Understand how connection can shape content and how Distance can fuel inquiry and empathy but the internet is No panacea for anything and the commons doesn't live in the Internet the commons is a way we commit to shaping the Internet where i teach many students have trouble Affording laptops and especially good laptops and by That i mean laptops that work many have trouble Affording broadband at home or paying for data on Their phones online learning isn't an easy option for Someone in the rural new hampshire north country where Broadband access and sometimes even electricity is Unreliable or nonexistent but thinking about a commons Oriented approach means i want a web that is accessible to More learners and a web that doesn't use its Communication capabilities to surveil or police the Bodies especially of my black and brown students. I ask critical questions about the tools i choose to Make sure i understand how to give students choice when They lack tech access or how to help them understand the Risks of sharing their data, their identities and their Ideas with a world that is now as much as ever hostile and Violent to certain people especially people of color Women of color, queer people, immigrants, disabled people, People shopping on a saturday afternoon at walmart. Accessible technology and technology that engenders Collective approaches to learning are part of an Another set of values that the public good is enriched when Every learner has access to shape the world. To that end our faculty and instructional designers and Librarians and technologists and really all of us we all Have to care about what barriers people face in joining This learning community and whatever our training or job Description we all have to take responsibility for all of The barriers that put up walls between our students and This connective vision. This is a companion textbook that environmental science Students at the ohio state university created as a team. It's openly licensed and easily expandable from year to Year. It involves a new generation of scholars in the World's most pressing climate and environmental issues and Helps those new to the field learn from peers who Explain and inspire them in terms that make sense. Work like this dramatically changes the concept of Access to knowledge because like the commons knowledge is Not a thing. It's a dynamic flow that shifts Minute by minute as new perspectives re-see the familiar. Students are key to this dynamic and so valuable in Helping to illuminate the cracks and fissures in the Doctrine of a field. Involving students in knowledge, Revision and creation is not a charitable act or even Strictly a pedagogical one. It's a way to recognize that The web has changed how we know and we have an Opportunity to shape our learning designs around that And this can help us build a web that's better for Learners and better for learning. I tried to make a concluding Slide but it wrapped up too neatly and I really just want Us all to go away and talk together about what gifts Distance gives us, what troubling legacies of learning Shape the courses and institutions that we offer to Our students and what role the public and the public Good play in how we think about education. Does the school or tool or company that you work With or for start with learners, empowering them to shape And revise the markets that serve them? Does your school or Tool or company leverage technology to support the full Potential of human creativity and connection? Does your school or tool or company scale its benefits Not to serve profit but to open access to learning? Does your school or tool or company keep people and Their diversity at the heart of personalization? We have to reconceptualize the vision that powers our uses of The web in teaching and align that vision to our practices. The horizon, sadly to me, looks like a line from here but Maybe it doesn't have to be. Thank you. I don't know if i go down or if i stay here. I stay here. Okay. You can see that we're also going to have some q At 10.15 in the grand terrace west. So if we don't get enough time here, feel free to pop by there And we can chat some more. Okay. Thank you very much, robin, for your inspiration to create And tell our stories. We want to say thank you with this. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, everyone. I'm not going to open it right away. No, you don't have to. Hi, everyone. I'm jenny gailey and i'm your conference coordinator. And this is your conference manager, bridge at powell. And your program assistant miranda winkelman joined us as well. We are going to be doing the q&a. As we start our q&a session, remember that the q&a feature Is in your guidebook app. We already have some comments And questions coming in from our virtual participants and Everyone here in madison. So let's get started. And i should say in my regular day job, i don't sit around Thinking this abstractly normally. So if you're interested in like nitty gritty practice, we can Talk about that here or later on today. Because mostly what i am is a professor. I do faculty and staff development now. But really i'm a teacher and i work with instructional Designers. Okay. So we are going to be opening this up. We got to make it a little bit bigger, sorry. Okay. Working collaboratively with Students to co-construct learning, but especially less Mature learners often crave structure and stability. And learning from or learning often requires foundational Knowledge and scaffolding. How do we bridge this gap? That's a great question. Yeah. So thinking about balancing structure with a more Participatory or what we sometimes call emergent Learning is one of the great sort of challenges and stressors. I have now come to enjoy that as a quality of teaching, not To try to ameliorate it all the time, because it doesn't Really go away. But one thing i'll say is i do Emergent learning where students are co-creating Actually both the learning materials, the course textbooks Themselves, and constructing the syllabus as we go in a Whole host of different kinds of courses. I work primarily with interdisciplinary study Students who are creating programs and everything from Physical therapy and pre-professional programs to Things like music physics, you know, like just very Individualized kinds of things. And i find that even when Content is really important as it is in like almost all of Our fields, this kind of emergence really works well. But when students need structure, i don't think that's At odds with the idea of being emergent. The question is, is the structure generated from student Need, or is it pre-generated because we build these Structures the same way, you know, since 1875, and it Doesn't really matter what this group needs. So, for example, i was teaching a first year seminar Very emergently one time, and we kind of had a topic That we were looking at, and one of the students said, I need content. I said, what content do you need? He was like, no, i need you to give me content. It was one of the things we scheduled into the course, right? I created a series of lectures. I also do a lot of creating Of course policies and grading rubrics with my students. Depending on the cohort of student and what kinds of Things they're studying and what their goals are, Sometimes they want very traditional approaches to things Like attendance policies. I had a course. I was voting no attendance policy, and they were like, that's Crazy, dorosa. If you miss three, your grade Goes down. I was like, okay. Part of what i just suggest is ask your students what Kinds of structures will help them be successful and build Those with them into the course. So it doesn't mean you don't have structure. It just means you think critically about your Structures and you encourage your students to Think critically about those structures as well. How do we balance the dangers of group thinking and mob Mentalities that occur when we decentralize and let Communities determine the path with thoughtful and informed Teaching slash leadership? If i really knew the answer to that, our country would be Saved. So first of all, you know, And this is also a less intelligent version of that Question, in my opinion, is things like, but there's wrong Things on wikipedia. But i think that also Supposes that if you get one empowered expert, that that is Somehow going to be, number one, politically neutral and true, And number two, high quality. But neither of those is Really true either. So the ability to critically Analyze your sources and the nature of truth is Important whether you're dealing in co-created sort of Crowd source material or you're dealing with an authority and An expert. So that kind of critical Thinking doesn't, i don't think it matters. You have to think critically no matter what. I think a great person working on this right now is Mike coffield, if you're interested in looking him up. And mike does a lot with helping students sort through The barrage of information that's coming off the nets. And doing that in a way that values critical thinking Processes. So what kinds of options Can you give them for the steps that they can take so that They can determine whether or not the information that They're evaluating is trustworthy. But we have to do that Whether we're working in a crowd sourced, emergent Community participatory environment or whether we're Working with just one commander and chief and his tweet. Like no matter where that authority lays, we have to Think critically about it. Thank you for acknowledging indigenous people and the land We many times take for granted. What advice do you have to Recognize and eliminate hidden curriculum in our classes? Yeah, that's a great question. The first thing i'll say is That, you know, there's a lot more to be said in many scholars Right on this. About the benefits and the Challenges of moving to community based participatory models For learning and inclusion. So on the one hand, we can see The potential in this kind of model to build a place where Disempowered voices can suddenly sort of have a chance to Participate, not just in learning, but in the creation of New knowledge. But on the other hand, when we move to the Internet, for example, to use technology to do these things, We see a host of problems. So me being a woman on the Internet is very different than somebody being sort of Publicly engaged on the internet as a man, but also as a White woman is very different as a public scholar and Somebody who works a lot in public spaces. I'm keenly aware of Some of the privileges i have and some of the risks i take. This is also true for precarious faculty and contingent faculty Who working in public can really be a challenge. One of the suggestions i make about this is just to say That the commons is not a utopian vision in which we all Participate democratically. Quite honestly, for me, it's Not that anymore. What it really is, is an Acknowledgement of power differentials and a willingness to Talk and center those conversations in our design. So i think about that, like, tom, with accessibility as Well, you are never going to make an accessible resource. Like, no resource is fully accessible to everyone, right? Because the accessibility thing you do here for this guy is Going to actually alienate this particular person over here. Accessibility is a stance, right? It's a commitment to Asking who's not at the table, using your privilege in Responsible ways. So that's what i think the Commons-oriented approach to design is all about. It's not about building perfection, but about building Around inclusion. Okay, so i think that's all that we have time for Right now, but as robin said, she is doing a featured Follow-up discussion, which is upstairs on the fourth floor In the area with all the windows, so make sure that If your question wasn't answered here, you can grab her Upstairs. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jenny. And as Jenny mentioned, to just Reiterate, the session with robin will start at 10.15, and the area is the Grand Terrace West, so if You do go to the Grand Terrace, which is the area that Overlooks the lake, you'll notice off to the right As you're looking at the lake, there's an area that's Got some lovely screens that are keeping the area Private. So thank you again, everyone, for your Ideas and questions and for using our app to do That. We're just about ready to start our Conference session, so we're really excited about What we're bringing to you today, so we ask that You bring your excitement and your engagement With you and make the most of your time today In the conference. Thank you. Remember that the latest information about what's Going on with the conference, if there's any session Swaps or anything like that, that's going to be in Your guidebook app, and our staff is here to help. We're noticeable by our red shirts, as you can See here. And so let's thank robin again For her wonderful inspiration, ideas, and practical Strategies. And I'm going to turn it back over to Jenny. Okay, so we want you to check out as many Sessions as you want, but we wanted to highlight a Few of our featured sessions today. So from 10 15 to 11 a.m., you have Newton Miller, who is Presenting learning from men of color, success Strategies for at-risk students. From 1.30 to 2.15 p.m., we have Penny Rolston Berg and Eddie Andreo, who is making the case Strategies for tools and communicating Innovation. And from 3.30 to 4.15 p.m., we have Kristen Betts, who is doing neuro-androgyny. Thank you, everybody. I practiced that a lot Last night, too, darn it. And student success, the Science and art of changing the brain. And we have Many, many more, so please be sure to check out Your guidebook app and the handbook that you Got when you checked in. Handing it back to Bridget. And to cap off our day of learning And engagement and excitement, we have more Excitement and collaboration. We have a very Special rooftop celebration. This is our 35th Anniversary, and we want to make it special. So meet in the lobby at 4.45 p.m. And follow The marching band up to the roof. I heard That the marching band was here earlier. Was it Here? Was it awesome? Was it awesome? Good. So follow them up where you'll enjoy food And dancing and prize giveaways from our Sponsors who have been incredibly generous. And conversation about the future of distance Teaching and learning. We want to thank Symbiosis Educational Consulting for Sponsoring the band. And we want to thank Canvas, Media Site, and the Duarte Group For sponsoring the party. So, I'm handing it back to Jim. So now it's time to start here and reach Everywhere. Enjoy your day everyone. We'll see you around. Thank you so much.